wake me up inside
by skyparents
Summary: he looks at up her with eyes full of desperation and he says, "abby, please. please. wake up." i'm trying, says the her who is trapped inside. because she started to wake up, she thinks, when she touched him, before. / my take on that scene in 3x13.
**NOTES** / _This is really delayed from 3x13 but I wanted to get it posted before we see these two again! This is my first Kabby fic, I hope you guys like it._

* * *

He looks at up her with eyes full of desperation and he says, "Abby, please. Please. Wake up."

 _I'm trying,_ says the her who is trapped inside, but when she opens her mouth to tell him, what comes out is, "Just tell us where Clarke and the others are hiding." Her voice does not sound like her voice; it sounds distant, far off, echoing through the cavern of her hollow chest. _Please. I'm trying. I'm here._

Because she started to wake up, she thinks, when she touched him, before. In a room up so many flights of stairs that her body breathed hard while she felt nothing.

* * *

Here's the thing: There are two Abby Griffins.

She forgets that the second Abby (or the first Abby, the one who has been breathing longer) is there, somewhere deep inside her chest, until she sees him. He says her name, voice echoing as he crosses to her, hands coming to rest on her shoulders for a moment before his thumbs brush hair back from her face, and the Abby hidden away inside blinks as if to clear her vision. She is the Abby who is sleepwalking now, has been since she let a chip be placed on her tongue and swallowed it down; she's living in a dream she can't wake up from, moving slow and numb and waterlogged.

Then there is the other Abby, the one on the outside. She's the first Abby, even though she is really second, because she is the one who people see, now. She moves smooth and fluid, looks at the world through eyes that don't see it right, speaks in a voice with no rough edges.

Her eyes flicker to his. "Marcus," she says, and it sounds more like the Abby Griffin on the inside, but she can feel the other Abby moving her lips for her. "Oh, thank God." She does not feel pain, anymore, but she has climbed too many stairs and allowed sentries to toss her carelessly to the floor when they pushed the door open. And so her lungs reach for air constantly, breathing in and out, repeat repeat repeat.

In a half-whisper, he (Marcus, she thinks, watching him with wide dark eyes) asks, "Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

She looks at him and tries to tell him that they didn't – they hurt Raven and it was somehow worse – but her lips do not move. "They found me hiding in the woods near the camp," says outside Abby instead. Deep breath. "Please. Tell me you know where Clarke is." It's now that she realizes, really, what ALIE wants. Or maybe she knew, earlier, but it didn't settle fully through her murky surroundings until she saw him and things seemed to clear, just a little. And when everything shifts, just enough for her to register the name, _Clarke,_ it hits her. Maybe she didn't know, before, who Clarke was. The name felt familiar, like it had rested on her tongue a million times, but she couldn't _remember._ But the trapped version of Abby knows exactly who Clarke is, and she screams on the inside: _Don't answer her, don't do it, don't tell her where Clarke is._

This message doesn't make it out into the open, either. He looks down at her, worry clouding every line on his face, and answers, "No, I thought she was here." So maybe the message did get to him; maybe he does know, and he's just hiding it.

But she can see ALIE with her red dress over Marcus' shoulder – her eyes flicker to the woman without her permission, but only for a moment – looking at him, analyzing his body language and the tone of his voice and every other physical clue she can read. "He's telling the truth," ALIE decides. She feels relieved, even if it's muted, even if ALIE shuts it down a moment later.

"No. I saw them shoot at her," she says, and she feels her face be rearranged into worry. What doesn't make it to her lips is that she let them, that she stood there shoulder-to-shoulder with the people holding the guns. "She got in the rover with Jasper and they got away, I – I'm, I'm sure." He tries to tell her that this is good, that it means Clarke is safe, and the toned-down relief swells for a moment again before it's covered by near-annoyance radiating from her skin to her core.

He doesn't seem to _get it._

Clarke isn't safe, ALIE is _looking_ for her, and the number of people joining in on the search is growing every day. But he doesn't seem worried; he's reassuring in the way he always is, the way she doesn't want him to be. Telling her that her daughter will be okay but not _doing_ anything about it. He stays still, feet rooted to the floor, with his hands on her shoulders, and the weight of his palms anchors her. She holds onto that and tries to tell him to leave, tries to tell him that he needs to get out of Polis and find Clarke and keep her safe.

Half of what she tries to say catches in her throat and doesn't meet air at all; the other half is twisted as it reaches her tongue. "Listen to me," she hears herself plead. "They're after Clarke." Which is a start, but the words don't carry the same urgency she wants them to, and he still doesn't move. Just asks _why._ Isn't it enough that they _are?_ She just wants him _and_ Clarke to be as far away from here as possible. He should be moving, long legs running him out of here. _Go,_ she tries to shout, but it comes out as, "She has something that they want," and when he asks what it is, she tries to tell him in explicit detail exactly what ALIE 2.0 is, but it comes out wrong, too – a broken _I don't know_ and then simply falling silent, and she watches while he spins away from her, her last glimpse of him deep in thought.

She moves before she thinks about it; it's ALIE's idea, but it puts her closer to him again, so she lets her feet carry her forward. "Marcus," she says, and reaches out until her fingers graze his elbow, and something grows warmer inside her when she does. She looks up at him and tries to find the words she wants to say; they come out less urgent, again, whittled down to two simple words that ALIE puts little check marks by _(these_ are the ones you can say, Abby). "I'm afraid."

This makes him reach for her, now, arms curling around her shoulders and pulling her to him. It allows the warmth to spread further, radiating from each place that her body presses to his. And she has a rare moment of control, she thinks, as if everything has paused because he is holding her. So she lifts her arms to rest palms high on his back, buries her face at the place where his shoulder meets his neck, shuts her eyes to focus on what parts of him she can _feel,_ concrete and real.

"Try harder."

Her eyes snap back open, and as they do, it's as if every emotion she has been allowed to feel is covered up. Everything feels muted again, as if each feeling is a watercolour, trailing pale traces of itself behind a brush with too much liquid on it.

She knows what ALIE wants her to do. And she drags it out, pressing her nose against his neck as she shifts, pulling back a little to look into his eyes. Stares up at him and hopes that he sees _something,_ even as her hand curls over his cheek and her fingertips move through his hair. And then she leans up to kiss him.

And the colours grow brighter.

So she kisses him again, angles her head to one side to press harder, because it makes the watercolours less diluted. Every second that she stays here, touching him, she feels a little more aware. Maybe he doesn't kiss back – he's still got one arm curled around her, but she can feel the tension coiled through his entire body as she presses herself forward – but it still _works._

She kisses him harder, moves her lips insistently against his because if he'd just _respond to it,_ she knows it would work _better;_ but even as she moves her hands, sliding them from his cheek to his shoulder to the side of his ribs and back up to curl into his hair, he doesn't respond the way she wants him to. He just lets her do it, lets her slide her tongue into his mouth and push him backwards until the back of his knees hit the couch she hardly registered was there and he sits reflexively. Following him down, she leans over him, one leg on either side of his, one hand on his shoulder to brace herself above him and the other tangled in his dark hair, tugging his head back so she can access his lips better.

Every moment that she touches him, every brush of some part of him against some part of her, wakes her up a little more, makes her feel like she has some semblance of control over herself. She thinks if she keeps going, keeps kissing him, maybe trails down to his jaw, his neck, it will help.

But he pushes her away.

 _He knows._

The colours begin to fade again as she falls heavily onto the couch next to him, and they stare at each other for a moment before he stands slowly. She waits for everything to fade back, now that he is moving away from her; she stands up, says his name before ALIE slides a cool wall between inside Abby and outside Abby, so she cannot reach the controls anymore.

"You've taken the chip."

It hurts, almost, that he didn't realize sooner. Outside Abby is so foreign to her; how did he look at her and not see that something was off? How did it take him so long?

The doors open behind him and she watches the two sentries who pushed her into the room step purposefully inside. She watches while he remains frozen, watching her, while he gives up. He's not going to try to get away. Even as strong hands curl around each arm, securing him in place, he barely flinches; just looks at her with something broken in his eyes, in the set of his lips.

 _I'm sorry, Marcus,_ she tries to say. But the five syllables that really fall from her mouth are all ALIE, all outside Abby.

"Put him on the cross."

* * *

Arms and legs tied down, he looks up at her with eyes full of desperation and he says, "Abby, please. Please. Wake up."

Here's the thing: There are two Abby Griffins.

 _I'm trying,_ says the her who is trapped inside, the her who can still taste him on her lips but can only remember what it was like to see things in full colour. But when she opens her mouth to tell him, what comes out is, "Just tell us where Clarke and the others are hiding." Her voice does not sound like her voice; it is outside Abby, distant, far off, echoing through the cavern of her hollow chest. _Please. I'm trying. I'm here._


End file.
